We <3 voxels: why Voxatron is an exciting indie shooter

It may be a smaller, arena-style shooter, but with a unique perspective and …

A voxel is a volumetric pixel, sort of a defined point, but with volume. They're not something you see in gaming much anymore, although the Delta Force series used a voxel-based engine to great effect. Joseph White of Lexaloffle games decided it was just about time to bring voxels to the world of arena-style shooters. Imagine a 3D, low-fi Smash TV.

The video of Voxatron in action made waves around the Internet, due to the striking visual style. "If anything I think having retro visuals removes expectations in a good way," White told Ars. "If there is no literal interpretation of the game world, you're more free to design things without worrying about agreeing with thematic constraints." This is why we're excited about voxels all over again. At least in this case.

Why voxels

White admits that the aesthetic nature of of voxels was the initial draw. "I was taken by Ken Silverman's Voxlap engine demos which allow you to fly freely around a voxel world. I liked the blocky look of voxels close up rather than considering them as tiny fragments approximating an idealized surface," he said.

Soon it became more than just a fascination with how voxels look, as he discovered the more interesting properties of voxels. "The most immediate one is that it makes everything very malleable; the world can be represented as one big voxel map which is easy to manipulate. For example, you can arbitrarily subtract big chunks from it without worrying about resolving a lot of tricky geometry."

Working with cubes in this sort of shooter also creates a game world that is a grid, meaning it's easy to get a sense for where everything is. This may seem trivial, but well-defined spaces and hit boxes is a major plus in games, and this is a lesson many developers forget. The last thing you want is the player to hurl the controller at the screen in frustration. "Once your brain gets acclimatized to deciphering a world set on a regular grid of cubes, it's much easier to instantly see where your big voxel foot is, or when your voxel nose is going to collide with a monster," White told Ars. It's a well-defined, striking way to create a game world.

Voxatron

There won't be many instances of large-scale destruction in the game, although the video shows a nice-looking explosion on the side of a virtual mountain. "I threw that scene into the trailer partly just to try and communicate the 'voxeliciousness' of the world," White explained. "I am exploring different ways to use construction and destruction in the game though. For example, there are pickups that allow you to build useful protective structures and many monsters' default behavior is to smash things down that are in their way."

Expect a smaller game, sold through Lexaloffle's website—although the possibility of being sold through other digital distribution platforms exists—and White is fine with the initial interest being due to what may seem to be a gimmick. "I don't mind at all If it gets attention then it's a good thing!" he said. The trick is to get people playing. "As long as I can get people actually trying the game, then they can decide for themselves if it's a gimmick or not."

Voxatron is coming to the PC, Mac, and Linux platforms in October, with a level editor and voxel editor soon after.